For those who want an honest and realistic picture of pregnancy, birth and raising three kids, then take a look at my #pregnancydiary and feel free get in touch with any comments, questions or suggestions.
Ice skating
Both me and my husband would have liked to wait a little longer before telling the kids about the pregnancy. It was supposed to be after the 12 week scan but I blurted it out a couple of weeks earlier.
It’s difficult to hide your pregnancy from those close to you when they see you inexplicably start throwing up four times a day and looking like death. They either guess that you’re pregnant (which is what my mum and sisters did) or they come to the conclusion that you are dying (which is what my kids did).
Of course I tried to pretend I was just not feeling well, and tried to keep them away from the bathroom when I was being violently sick but they were really worried about me. I tried to carry on as normal and take them out and about, we even went ice skating and even though I can skate, maybe that wasn’t the best idea ever.
Giraffe
We were shopping in Westfield one day and I took them to Giraffe for lunch. I ended up being sick in the toilets with my daughters standing outside the cubicle both crying and banging on the door shouting “Mummy, what’s wrong? Please come out Mummy!”.
In hindsight I could have played down the whole incident but at the time I thought it was best to tell them so they would understand. So over lunch I told them the reason I kept being sick was because I had a baby in my tummy and my body was just getting used to it and that’s why I was so sick. I told them not to worry and that I would be back to normal in a few weeks (I hoped!).
Their reactions were poles apart.
Love grows
My youngest daughter, who is five, laughed hysterically with happiness but my seven year old looked worried and said “no, you’re lying”. I assured her I wasn’t and asked how she felt about it. She avoided eye contact, shook her head and said she didn’t want to talk about it.
After some gentle coaxing she told me “it’s because everything will change and we will have to share things between three instead of two”. Ok so that’s true, but I reminded her of how Daddy has five brothers and sisters and Mummy has two sisters and isn’t it lots of fun when we all get together? And what if we have another girl, it will be like Mummy and your two Masis.
I also assured her that a Mummy and Daddy’s love grows when they have another baby so there’ll be more than enough to round. That seemed to cheer her up. However, I made a mental note to keep a close eye on her emotional well being.
Soft foods
My youngest little Miss advised me, in her wisest voice, to “eat soft foods Mummy! And if you have to eat hard foods then chew them really well”.
Hubby was a bit disappointed that we hadn’t told them together, especially since I had said I wanted to wait to tell them, but he understood why I did it.
There’s always the danger of miscarriage in the early stages of pregnancy and also the chance that some problem may be detected in the 12 week scan and blood tests. If that happens it would be very hard to explain it to the kids. We will cross that bridge if we come to it but we have to think positive.
